Understanding Community College Students' Learning Styles and the Link to Academic Achievement

Abstract

Learning styles have been an area of interest in educational psychology for many decades. However, community college students have been overlooked in learning styles research. To enhance teacher efficacy and student success, it is important to continue to evaluate the relationship between learning styles and academic achievement. The purpose of this quantitative study, based on Kolb's experiential learning theory, was to further explore whether there are significant differences in community college students' preferred learning style and the relationship between learning style and academic achievement. The Learning Styles Inventory 3.1 was administered to 229 community college students to assess learning style and grade point average was collected as the measure of academic achievement. Analyses of variance and chi-square were used to analyze data after exploratory data analysis and descriptive statistics were examined. Results indicated that men and women had significantly different learning style preferences. The most significant difference was in the accommodating learning style category, which was 70.2% female and 29.8% male. However, academic achievement did not significantly differ by learning style. Interestingly, 70% of participants were unaware of a preferred learning style. The positive social change implication is for community college stakeholders to better understand students' unique learning needs which will augment learning success and promote degree completion.